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Joining the Lab

Graduate Students

Current Princeton graduate student please email Tim (tim@timbuschman.com) to schedule a meeting to discuss research interests and goals.

If you are interested in pursuing your PhD in neuroscience, Princeton has two wonderful neuroscience graduate programs: Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Psychology department. As the lab is affiliated with both programs, students can enter the lab from either program. Interested students should investigate both graduate programs as they are unique in several ways:

The Neuroscience graduate program focuses on developing students with a strong multi-discplinary approach to neuroscience. The program has a unique first-year introductory course that surveys current neuroscience knowledge and techniques. Students learn through first-hand experience: what it is like to run their own fMRI experiments; to design and run their own computer simulations of neural networks; to image live neural activity; to patch-clamp single cells; etc. Incoming students are encouraged to rotate through up to three different labs to choose the lab that best matches their interests. In this process, students may sometimes discover an area of research completely new and fascinating to them. Following their rotations, and by mutual agreement with their prospective faculty adviser, students choose a lab in which they will carry out their Ph.D. research.

The Ph.D. program within the Department of Psychology emphasizes preparation for research and teaching in psychology. Incoming students are expected to have a strong research interest upon joining the department. First-year students identify a research supervisor (often tentatively assigned prior to arrival) and immediately jump into planning and performing research. The research supervisor represents the student's main research area of interest and serves as the student's primary source of advice, guidance, criticism and support. In addition, a "second advisor" is selected to work closely with the student; serving as an additional source of advice and guidance. It is intended that the students will work closely with both advisors and that their research will often combine the interests of both advisors (this can lead to some really cool projects!).

For students with interests at the intersection of neuroscience and Chemistry, Biology, Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics, or Engineering, the Joint Program in Neuroscience allows for extremely unique opportunities.

Undergraduate Students

We are always excited to have undergraduates in the lab! If you are interested, please email Tim (tim@timbuschman.com) to set up a meeting to discuss interests and goals.

Post-doctoral Fellows

The lab is actively looking for post-doctoral fellows. If you are interested, please email Tim (tim@timbuschman.com). Funding is limited, although I am happy to help post-docs acquire fellowships. Electrophysiology and/or behavioral training experience is preferred (in either the primate or rodent model), although an interest in extending your previous experience in a new direction is always encouraged!